Burn out Bright
by Periphery
Summary: A maid in the Citadel hears all and sees most.


_Disclaimer: Not mine. Last few lines of song belong to The Calling._

_A/N: This was written for December's Teitho . . . yes, I know it's been a long time, but my home computer decided to stop letting me log in to the site. So here it is, finally . . ._

* * *

She was all set to give the elf a good tongue-lashing – rather looking forward to it, actually – but when she got a chance to see Lord Legolas, half a day after his arrival in the citadel, the anger kindled in his eyes made even her back away.

"Did you have a good trip?" she asked diffidently, because they were the only two in the hallway and she knew he knew her.

For a moment he looked at her blankly. "Did I – oh. Yes, thank you." He frowned at her as she shifted uneasily under the weight of her basket. "What, no 'what took you so long?'"

She had given him that lecture once for less of an infraction. But something in his gaze made her cautious. "Well, I suppose you had a good reason, my lord." The king was dying, after all, and everyone knew it – nothing but a good reason could have kept the elf away.

"You would be right in supposing that," he said, his words bit off slightly as though they were fighting their way out. "Apparently no-one saw fit to _inform _me – " He stopped, likely at the look that must have been on her face. She had never before seen the Lord of Ithilien truly angry; like most menfolk, he cowered before the maid on a warpath. "My apologies," he said quietly.

"Seems like you need the apologies, if you don't mind my saying."

"I never mind you saying, ma'am. Usually you are correct." He sighed. "You tell me who needs to do the apologizing and I'll go along with it."

Well, that was useless. All she knew about the situation was that her king had been growing despondent, waiting for a friend who did not come. "Who was meant to inform you?"

The elf shrugged helplessly. "Whose responsibility is that? Arwen – the queen – told him weeks ago that she had sent for me, but that message never reached Ithilien."

"Did something happen – ?" She liked the runners, most of whom she had scolded at least once.

"According to the head of the messenger Corps, no letter was ever sent."

The implications of that made her swell with anger. "Oh, you just wait, my lord, 'til I get my hands on that queen of yours – "

"Your queen," Legolas pointed out gracefully.

"Yes," she murmured, deflating. "My queen." She knew the royal family was inordinately fond of her, but one could expect only so much leniency, even from the most kind of people. "I suppose I'll go gentle on her then," she muttered.

The elf bowed, smiling slightly. "In any case, your rage never seems to work as well on the queen," he said.

"It doesn't," she agreed. "Now if you'll excuse me, young man, I've work to do."

* * *

Spending as much time in the king's chambers as she did, she was surprised at how rarely she saw the queen; but their problems, she supposed, were their problems, although she thought it a crying shame. Lord Legolas, on the other hand, spent enough time there to meet her standards.

_Yes, after all this time, _Elessar had said to her when she remarked upon his friend's arrival. _I feared some ill had befallen him, alone on the road._

_The road is safe, Majesty, _she had said, thinking his mind to be wandering again. _You made sure of that._

_Aye, only Legolas could have found trouble upon it!_

After all this time, she thought later. For certain it had been a very long few weeks. But there was a light returned to her king's eyes now, and she liked to think that the elf had put it there.

Bah! She must be getting sentimental in her old age.

* * *

Barely a month before, they had celebrated the winter festival. _You see one, you've seen them all, _her husband used to say about the festivities, and ten years after his death she was left to ruminate upon the similarity of the celebrations. Every year they watched the same ceremony and ate the same meal and had the same arguments, and every time the interceding year might as well never have happened.

Until one day she turned around and her granddaughter was sitting with the grown-ups for the first time, bursting with pride.

The words she heard when she first passed the king's bedchamber that day were too intensely personal for even her to eavesdrop. "She does not understand why you do not fight," the visiting elf was saying.

"But that's just the way it is with humans," her king said.

"But we're _elves!"_

She continued down the hall, trying to forget what she had heard.

"Who invented time," the elf could be heard to mutter, sullen as a child, when she passed that way again. "I want to hurt him."

Well, she could sympathize with that. She didn't understand time herself, and she only had one version of it to deal with. She took a step closer to the door and listened.

"'Tis a strange thing, time," the king agreed. "Don't think too hard, is all. Don't you see, mellon-nin, this is the way every man wants to die – "

"Wants to die?" The elf's words sounded strangled, forced past an obstruction that had formerly done a very good job of keeping them trapped. "Wants to die?"

"Aye," the king said, patient. "Now you listen to me, Legolas." She stifled a snort, picturing Elessar sitting with is friend at his feet, the man the wise old mentor, the elf a recalcitrant schoolboy.

"When I was younger," the king began, and she settled herself against the wall, for she liked his stories; "I believed my mind to be as an elf's. I grew up with elven language and customs, and I never quite dropped them, in all my years living among men.

"But I am a man, Legolas, and I never did pick up your concept of time. I can't conceive of living forever, and what's more, I wouldn't wish to do so. This death is not a tragedy; it is every man's dream: to die old, and peaceful, and surrounded by loved ones. And I'll still be with you, mellon-nin, I swear. You see?"

She saw, or rather she instinctively understood; but apparently the elf didn't, for the next thing she heard was a muted "It's not your time, Estel."

"Oh, but it is," the king responded, and the elf fled and before she knew it she was caught.

Both wide-eyed, elf and maid blinked at each other until he grabbed her arm and dragged her and her laundry down the hallway. "How much of that did you hear?" he demanded.

"Enough to tell you what your problem is," she shot back. When all else failed, her lectures always put menfolk in their place. Or distracted them. "Do you have to make his more difficult for him?"

He stared at her, mouth working silently. "_I _– more difficult – I am not!"

More childlike he was the longer she knew him. "Yes, you are," she reproved, but calmly. Now that he was distracted, she could afford to be gentle. "He was so happy that you came, and now you upset him like this."

"I did not upset – "

She stared him down. _Yes, you did; all your denial proves is that you did not want to._

"I did, didn't I," the elf murmured.

_Good._ "He's right, as well," she went on, just for good measure, to make certain the elf truly understood. "Elessar's death is sad, aye, but far from tragic."

Legolas shook his head, muttering something that sounded very like _It is to me, _and said aloud, "He is but a child."

"To an elf," she retorted. "He has lived thrice a man's lifetime."

To this the elf seemed to have no comeback. She waited, looking up into the fair face, sorting through everything that had been said, hoping his self-control was enough to keep at bay the breakdown that was clearly so near.

"Tell me," she said at length, "why a child's death is especially sad."

"Why – because a child has done so little."

"And now consider Elessar. He had a family, he ruled a kingdom, he saved the world – though that was before my time, of course."

The elf looked startled. "Aye, it was." He paused, pensive, looking her up and down. "Would _you _want to live forever?"

"Oh, no," she said immediately. "Humans are meant to die, my lord. We get old, and by then most of us understand life. Death is the next challenge." She smiled at him, impish. "Or a nice long rest. I'm continually changing my mind about that."

He cracked a smile, nodded slightly. She hefted the laundry higher on her hip and turned to go, then whirled for a parting shot.

"Don't forget, my lord – only lack of support could make this a tragedy now."

* * *

In the ensuing weeks she fancied that Lord Legolas _must _have had a talk with the queen, for suddenly Arwen spent a great deal of time by her husband's bedside. The maid went about her duties and shared quiet smiles with her king, knowing that he knew what she had done. The prince performed the affairs of state; the people were subdued; the city held its breath.

_I know now just quite how_

_My life and love might still go on – _

_In your heart, in your mind_

_I'll stay with you_

_For all of time . . . ._

* * *

_Please review. Please. Please._


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